


Cherry Wine

by devaway



Series: Out of the Fire, Into the Cold [2]
Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Deep Conversations, Fluff and Angst, Lots of dialogue, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sebastian asks about the meaning of art, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, i just really like writing these two, this ship is sweet and dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-28 03:07:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12596784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devaway/pseuds/devaway
Summary: “Then who are you to decide when people possess the most beauty? If you’re going by your own little artist’s creed, it would only be natural for someone to disagree with you. In which case, your whole theory about death and beauty is royally fucked. What if someone was like ‘let’s photograph newborn babies because that’s when humans are the purest!’ What then?” Sebastian tilted his head back, banging it against the headboard of the bed. The not-so-soft thump echoed a bit, but he didn’t seem to care. He raised his eyebrows as he took a drink from a beer can--nothing expensive, of course. Still, it seemed that most of their acquired funds went to alcohol, which was scathing, because an artist needed supplies. Stefano put that to the back of his mind, for now.Artistic disagreement? Varied interpretations of art? Drunk Sebastian was always a surprise.





	Cherry Wine

**Author's Note:**

> The title came from the song Cherry Wine by Hozier, which I recommend looking up. It is one of the songs I listen to when writing this pairing. Enjoy~

Blood was an interesting medium to work with. If you used it to paint, you had to have a bit of flexibility when you imagined what the finished product would be. Fresh blood was ruby red, no, even redder. It was the pinnacle, the  _ perfect _ red. When you thought of red, you thought of blood. But, blood changed color with age. What was red became brown. Light lines became bolder and the feeling, the message, dipped into darkness. The color itself was fleeting, ephemeral. And Stefano found that quite beautiful.

Art, in all forms, was marked by a certain impermanence. He was never blind to the inevitable outcome. Art had many faces; destruction, even more. However, to grasp the essence of art and hold it firm and fast in your grip, you had to face these things. Statues crumbled, words became forgotten, and paintings decayed even as the subject smiled, or danced, or cried. At the core, a work of art was ever only captured in a moment--but who could say if that moment was the last brushstroke, the climax of plot, or the first scream when a knife entered flesh?

“It’s fucking ridiculous.” Sebastian shook his head, unsure of whether to frown or laugh. “Ridiculous.”

“What?” Stefano was used to the criticism--he was used to all sorts of criticism--but Sebastian’s unwillingness to appreciate the truth was digging into an old wound. Stefano unconsciously brushed his hair over his eye.

“Where did you get the idea that people were the most beautiful right before they  _ died? _ I mean, I can kinda get it--”

“Apparently not.”

“Just let me finish. You’re trying to hold a conversation with me about these things, right? A conversation is two sided.”

Stefano sighed and shifted in the desk chair (yes, this motel was a step up from some of the others).

“Alright. I’ll listen to you attempt to make a point.”

“I’m not attempting. My point is this: as an artist, you agree beauty is subjective. All of that ‘eye of the beholder’ shit.”

“I do.”

“Then who are  _ you _ to decide _ when _ people possess the most beauty? If you’re going by your own little artist’s creed, it would only be natural for someone to disagree with you. In which case, your whole theory about death and beauty is royally fucked. What if someone was like ‘let’s photograph newborn babies because  _ that’s _ when humans are the purest!’ What then?” Sebastian tilted his head back, banging it against the headboard of the bed. The not-so-soft thump echoed a bit, but he didn’t seem to care. He raised his eyebrows as he took a drink from a beer can--nothing expensive, of course. Still, it seemed that most of their acquired funds went to alcohol, which was scathing, because an artist needed supplies. Stefano put that to the back of his mind, for now.

Artistic disagreement? Varied interpretations of art? Drunk Sebastian was always a surprise.

“There is... freedom to disagree as long as there was first an attempt at understanding.”

“Yeah, sure. But what is it that actually makes  _ art _ ? How can you claim your efforts are art, but if I took a snapshot of a dead body, you’d say it wasn’t art?”

“You’re quite talkative tonight.”

“You never minded listening in before. Is it just because I found a hole in your ideology?”

“Ideology is such a broad term…”

“No shit. Just answer my question.”

Stefano rested his chin on the back of the desk chair. Across the small room, Sebastian adjusted the pile of pillows at his back. A quick flicker of a grimace washed over his features when he twisted left; the most recent assassination attempt by Mobius resulted in a cut across Sebastian’s ribs. It was healing nicely, or as nicely as it could patched up with a little gauze and surgical tape, half of which had been shoplifted. (Sebastian was surprisingly good at shoplifting.) A hospital was out of the question (for more reasons than one) but Sebastian had been diligent in cleaning it so far. Sometimes he mumbled at the sight of his own ripped flesh and bemoaned a phantom pain in his leg; the reference was lost on the artist. Still, Stefano found himself wondering. Sebastian spoke quite often, and when he did he made no effort to hide his personal thoughts, but the more time Stefano spent around him, the more he had the feeling he wasn’t learning much about the man at all.

This conversation was a perfect example. Sebastian, who had spent immeasurable energy and effort trying to destroy Stefano’s works suddenly wanted to know the reason behind artistic motivation. And not just Stefano’s, no. That was not how he had phrased the question. But asking  _ what is art?  _ was like asking if there was a God. There were far too many answers to cover in a lifetime, and everyone had a different answer.

“Art,” Stefano’s voice seemed a little out of place in the drab, rented room. “Art is a medium, constructed to make someone… feel something.”

Sebastian mulled it over. At least, that was what he appeared to be doing, with his feet kicked up on the bed, shoes still on, and head lolling against the particle board headboard. His eyes were closed. Sebastian had such long eyelashes. It was an odd feature for normal people to notice, but Stefano never claimed to be normal. He was an artist. It was his nature to see things others did not, regardless of morality or intent.  

Minutes passed and Stefano wondered if Sebastian had fallen asleep. 

“You’re a psychopath.” Sebastian then spoke up. “Why would _ you  _ want to feel anything? People like you are supposed to be incapable of stuff like that.”

The comment was unexpected, the loathing in Sebastian’s voice less so. Yet, together, that ignorance born from prejudice--fueled by Stefano’s own actions, certainly--pained the artist a little more than he would ever care to admit. He dropped his gaze to his shoes, noticed the way he tapped his toes against the carpet without thinking of it. Such things were beneath him. He stilled his movements; Sebastian’s laugh flowed through the air like honey, smooth and slow, but there was a bitterness there, a harshness. 

“Don’t like being confronted with the truth, do you?”

“No one does.  _ You _ especially.” Stefano spat. Sebastian only laughed, again.

“Yeah, that’s true. True indeed.” He took a drink. “But you see, after a while, you stop giving a shit about what’s true anymore.”

“Yes, I can see that, Sebastian.” Stefano softened his voice a bit. Better to change the subject; the nature of reality was a recurring theme in conversations, and it had lost its charm. Stefano again drifted his attention to the man’s unkempt state. If there was one thing he knew with certainty about Sebastian Castellanos, it was that asking nicely was the best way to get him to do something. He didn’t take kindly to orders. “Please, at least take your shoes off before you lay on the bed, no?”

Sebastian jerked forward, just a little, an unnameable expression on his face.

“Because it is so much trouble for you...”

“Your shoes are dirty. I have no desire to sleep in sheets stained with mud and whatever else you pick up on your walks.”

“Oh? Who said you’re sleeping in the bed?”

“You’ve had it the past few nights.”

“And I’m in it.”

That was a good point. In STEM, Stefano had been strong, extremely strong. His touch could rend and dissolve the world around him. He was a god. Here, back in reality, all the limitations of a physical body weighed on him. Sebastian was much too heavy for him to shove around. The detective loathed the mention of it but only reaped the benefits. Stefano’s weakness (dare he even call it that) was something to be considered when the two slept together: weeks ago, Sebastian had come in, drunk, stumbling, and fell onto bed right next to the artist, shaking the frame, waking his bedmate. Over the course of the night Sebastian had ended up on top of and draped over Stefano, and Stefano, for lack of more intellectual language, couldn’t do jack-shit.

“Well you could move over.”

“I don’t really feel like it.” Sebastian shrugged. He finished off the beer and tossed the can across the room, easily landing it in the trashcan. 

Stefano rolled his eye.

“Hey, if there was one good thing about STEM, it taught me to fuckin’ aim.” Sebastian laughed. After a moment he kicked off his shoes and ripped the covers out from where they were neatly arranged. “Night.” The word came out like a taunt.

Stefano sighed, knowing he had lost the battle. He managed to snag a pillow before Sebastian flicked the light out; he stretched out as best he could in the short easychair. He draped the detective’s new coat over him like a blanket--it was almost big enough. Soon, Sebastian’s snores filled the room. Rather than fight it and let it annoy him, Stefano let them lull him to sleep. 

He woke up later, surrounded by darkness and the uncomfortable moans that marked one of Sebastian’s nightmares. A dusty light beam slithered in through the curtains from the streetlamp outside. It fell across Sebastian’s twitching form and amplified the pain in his disjointed words. They were all the same, every night. He’d cry out to Myra, to Lily, sometimes to Joseph--he was Sebastian’s former partner at the KCPD, but Stefano knew nothing more of him. Sometimes Sebastian would string together a coherent sentence. Most often they were unintelligible. That didn’t stop Stefano from listening. The uniformity of the names was almost comforting, even with the knowledge that all those names were of names of the dead.

In the worst bouts of nightmares, Sebastian would twist and strain under the blankets. He never screamed. He kept it tied up in his throat. He might try, but the only similar sound he ever made was a wheezing, choking noise that spoke more of pride than bravery. 

Tonight, Sebastian was having one of those nightmares, a screamless struggle between things that didn’t exist. Stefano watched, waited. He told himself he got pleasure out of the pain, but he was never able to drift back to sleep when Sebastian fought his way through dreamworld. Stefano watched, not because he wanted to, but because until Sebastian’s whimpers quieted and his movements stilled, Stefano could not hope to sleep. It was the noise, the tension in the air, surely. Sebastian’s well being was only a thing to be monitored for its benefit. Just a tool to be used, cleaned, like a knife, like a paintbrush--

Sebastian rolled over, the movement abrupt, and stared through the darkness, directly into Stefano’s eye. His breathing was heavy but he appeared awake.

“Seb--”

“I wish I could have killed you.”

The words cut through the night, severed the yellow stream of intruding light. Stefano didn’t speak. He tried, failed. He blinked instead, taking in the sight before him. Sebastian only remained looking at him for another moment before collapsing back into the pillows. His breaths evened out. He slept. Stefano didn’t. The words looped through his head, compounded upon the conversation of earlier.

_ Art is a medium constructed to make someone feel something. _

_ You’re a psychopath. _

_ Why would  _ you _ want to feel anything? _

_ I wish I could have killed you. _

Not feeling--that would have indeed been a great gift. But that wasn’t Stefano’s gift. Stefano’s gift was seeing things others didn’t see. 

He did not sleep. He sat in the darkness, closed his good eye. The other one throbbed. There was nothing he could do about it.

\--

Early morning came and went. Stefano drifted in and out of consciousness but never for very long. Each movement the detective made jolted him out of his stupor. Was he eager for Sebastian to wake? Was he awaiting the apology that should follow? No, of course not. The comment was warranted. It made sense. Why wouldn’t Sebastian have wanted to kill him? Why wouldn’t he still?

At 10 A.M. Sebastian groaned and dragged himself from the bed. He slunk to the bathroom and shut the door. It was Stefano’s hunch that the wouldn’t be out for a while, busy trying to make his dead, hungover eyes appear more lifelike. When the shower started, Stefano knew he was correct.

The minutes dwindled away and Stefano tried to occupy his thoughts with something other than the glaring truth that Sebastian hated him. Now, like in the hours of the past night, Stefano found he couldn’t. It was disconcerting. The only subjects which had so consumed his waking hours were his art, his creations. Sebastian was his masterpiece, was he not? Perhaps, if the game was to pick each other off, Stefano could strike first--

“Hey.”

Stefano blinked and shook his head. He had not even noticed when Sebastian came back into the room. His hair dripped and his clothes were rumpled from having been slept in, but there was a shine to the detective’s gaze, an interesting quirk to his lips. 

“Hmm?”

“You have my coat.” The words were laced with deadpan humor. Stefano looked down. It seems he did have Sebastian’s coat.

“Since you left me no blankets I had to make due.”

“Come on, it’s fine. I’m not attacking you.” Sebastian chuckled. The choice of words left Stefano on edge. “Can I get it back?”

Stefano stood, relinquishing the coat. He stretched, aching a bit from his night in the chair. Sebastian watched him.

“You look like shit.”

“Excuse me?”

“Did you sleep at all?”

“Only when you didn't wake me.” Stefano ducked the question. Immediately Sebastian’s demeanor changed.

“Oh. Did I… make a lot of noise?” he asked.

Stefano blinked and pressed his lips together.  _ He doesn't remember what he said. _

“Sometimes. Mostly you just moan.”

“It’s pain.” Sebastian stated, turning away. “Mental anguish. Hurts like hell. It’s like… when I’m asleep I’m back in STEM. Every night, over and over again.”

There was no emotion to the detective’s words. They fell from his lips as ice, shattering on the floor. Stefano swallowed, unsure of how to reply.

“What is it… that you do? Do you just walk in STEM?”

“No, no that’d be too nice. I have to do it all over again. Some nights it's Theodore and… you. Other nights I’m back in Beacon. Even after I thought I’d left that place, left it for good. I don’t know. Maybe…” Sebastian turned back around and caught Stefano’s gaze, held it. “Do you think there are places in the mind we can never reach? Memories and experiences that we can’t throw out no matter, no matter how fuckin’ hard we try?”

The obvious, truthful answer was yes. Yes, Stefano knew that region of the mind well. He had felt its sting differently, but he had felt it nonetheless. He didn’t know if admitting so would help or hinder Sebastian. 

“I think in purely artistic terms--”

Sebastian scoffed and shook his head.

“--that everything can at least be improved.”

Sebastian paused in his dismissal. The coat was held tightly in his hands. He frowned in contemplation, but his attention never wavered from his own white knuckled grip.

“Everything can be improved?”

“Everything can be improved.” Stefano echoed.

“What about your own perfect art?”

Stefano smiled. The explanation came easier this time.

“No art is perfect. Its goal is to make people feel. Throughout life, people learn to feel differently. Art mirrors their own experiences. Art is as much alive as those who are viewing it, in fact, art lives because others live.”

“Life and death, huh? That’s your theme, then.”

“I could say…” Stefano spoke slowly, carefully. “That it is also yours. You spend your life chasing the dead to avenge them. I’ve spent mine trying to capture their beauty.”

“And what beauty do the dead hold?”

“I’m not the one who calls their names in my sleep.”

Sebastian huffed and looked up. There might have been tears in his eyes but his sadness was masked by his rage. Tension crept around his neck, steeled his jaw. That mention--Stefano shouldn’t have done it. The coldness that he had seen quite often established itself in Sebastian’s soul, yet again. It used to be alluring: that was the face Sebastian wore when he killed. But he wasn’t killing now, unless, deep down, he was killing himself.

For the rest of his time in the motel room, Sebastian didn’t speak. He left at noon to search. Their goals were one and the same: destroy Mobius. So far they hadn’t been successful. But Sebastian never stopped trying, not even when they sent assassins, not even when they wiped his bank account and removed him from all documentation. Sebastian didn’t stop.

It was late that night when the door to the motel creaked open and slammed shut. Stefano jumped awake (he had been eager to steal the bed back). Sebastian frowned down at him, but it was not a hostile frown. He moved to the edge of the bed and sat. Exhaustion was written all over his face. He patted the spot beside him.

“I got you something.”

Stefano quirked an eyebrow, still groggy from sleep. He crawled over the covers and paused at Sebastian’s side. The detective removed something from his coat pocket.

“I thought you’d like this.”

Sebastian set the box between them and then nudged it closer to Stefano’s awed form.

“That’s a camera.”

“Yeah.” Sebastian laughed. “You might have made a good detective thinking like that.”

“W-where did you get it?”

“I stole it.” Sebastian shrugged. He stood and stripped off his coat, watching the other man’s excitement as he ripped open the package. So consumed by the little piece of technology between his hands, Stefano did not notice when Sebastian lay down next to him, and yawned.

“I cannot believe you did this.” 

“Why?”

“Because you… I just…”

“Consider it an incentive.”

“An incentive?”

“I found some information today. And I’m going to need your help going after some… things.” Sebastian scratched his chin. 

“If it is about Mobius I would have helped you anyway. I hate them just as much as you.”

“Yeah, but… everything can be improved, right?”

“Yes.” Stefano stifled a laugh. “But what are you getting at?”

“You know what, I don’t even know. Just… try not to keep me up with that. I am so goddamn tired.”

Stefano smiled. He couldn’t remember the last time he smiled like that. That smile was needed, an emotional satisfaction that bubbled in his chest. If he had to give it a color, it would have been red, fiery, ruby red. That kind of satisfaction ran even through his blood.

“You know,” he mused, setting the half-opened box on the nightstand. “It can wait until the morning.”

Sebastian nodded and closed his eyes. As Stefano moved to get up from the bed, a hand closed around his arm.

“You can stay.”

And Stefano did.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys get the same feels while reading as I did while writing because I swear I'm grinning like an idiot now. I've gotten way too into this pairing.   
> (Someone send help...)
> 
> As always, please leave a kudos and/or comment!   
> Thanks for reading!


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